A single mother fights social, financial hurdles to ride to work to roadside kiosk in Karachi

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Updated 17 February 2023
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A single mother fights social, financial hurdles to ride to work to roadside kiosk in Karachi

  • Nazia’s home-made Daal Chawal recipe was successful enough to fend off established competition around her
  • To save money the young entrepreneur learned to ride a motorbike to commute over six kilometers from her home to her kiosk

KARACHI: When a 30-year-old single mother decided to quit her job in a multinational food chain to start her own roadside food stall, even her family was against it.

Nazia, who prefers to go by her first name only, gave up the long work hours at her old job almost a year ago to give more time to her only child. But familial disapproval meant that her brother blocked her on his phone when he found out. And social taboos were not the only hurdle Nazia had to face. She also had to sell her own jewelry to purchase a cart and enough crockery to start setting up her stall.

Just within a few months, however, Nazia’s ‘Baji Daal Chawal Wali’ had attracted a multitude of customers in an area that already had the Shandar Shinwari Hotel for competition, a famous eatery in Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Jamal area. Daal Chawal is a simple but popular dish mixing lentils and rice, and Nazia was so masterful at it that the praise she earned even made her brother come around to her life choices. Every day laborers, shopkeepers, families, and even office-going people all flock to her establishment.

“Today the same brother and sister-in-law stand by me because the path I adopted [was proven] right,” Nazia, popularly known as Baji, told Arab News at her stall, which started off as a food cart but has now turned into a proper, permanently placed kiosk. The food she makes is quite popular in her family, so branching out was a natural progression.

With a huge silver cauldron filled with boiled rice placed inside a portable stand, and three yellow buckets containing daal and other dishes hanging from her motorbike, Nazia rides through narrow streets, a thin lane under the railway track and a jam-packed road for more than six kilometers daily to reach her roadside kiosk in Gulshan-e-Jamal, in front of the city’s Millennium Mall, to show the world her culinary skills.

The ride, with nearly 100 kilograms of weight attached to her old 70cc motorbike carrying essential items, is not an easy journey through Karachi’s bumpy, often hazardous traffic. But this new entrepreneur needed to save the money, roughly around Rs500 or $1.89, she would otherwise be paying to auto-rickshaw drivers as return fare. 

“I had not [even] ridden a bicycle [in my life] but when I started working my income was not that much that I could pay for conveyance,” she said, adding that an acquaintance got her the motorcycle on credit. “I took the bike, then learned to ride while tumbling and crashing but Alhamdulillah I [finally] got the hang of it,” she said.

Nazia has since started adding several other dishes to her original menu of Daal Chawal and has not raised the prices or decreased the quantity, though the cost of her ingredients has gone up.

“Inflation has tripled, which has distressed me. Previously, I would get forty percent, sometimes thirty percent [profit], now I work on twenty percent. If I have spent Rs5,000 I hardly get Rs800-1,000 [in return],” she said with a sense of disappointment.

The challenges are not just inflationary. Nazia, like her fellow Karachi denizens, is not immune to traffic accidents in the biggest megalopolis in Pakistan where hundreds of road incidents occur on a daily basis.

“There is a problem due to traffic…but what can I do?” Nazia added that earlier this week a vehicle hit her bike from the back which left her bike reeling. “Had I not controlled [the bike], nothing would be left of us [me and my child].” There were buses coming right behind her and her bike’s brakes had malfunctioned on impact. At the end of it all she had crashed into a wall, and was just sitting by the road, shivering in panic and fear.

Undaunted by these ordeals, Nazia has called upon other women to be strong and take steps for themselves to embark on steps of self-empowerment and independence.

“You experience a tragedy and [are] single. [If you are] facing problems in running a household, facing issues in raising your child, facing difficulties in paying house rent, then what is better for you, to choose the wrong way, choose a shortcut, or [choose the] right path? To feel shame, or do work?”

She advises women not to care about what the world thinks. “Don’t care about anyone, the path should be the right one. It’s better to have courage instead of begging, [and] spreading your hands,” she said.

Nazia said she is not intending on limiting her great recipes to herself. “I have created my YouTube channel with the name of Baji Daal Chawal, BDC, and I will upload videos and invite [other] people [on it],” she said.

“Believe me, I don’t use external recipes. This is simple homemade clean food. The basic thing is the taste that God has bestowed upon me. I [can] prepare good food in a very short time and I will teach [other] people [to do the same].”


Fire erupts in Islamabad’s Margalla Hills, containment efforts underway

Updated 5 sec ago
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Fire erupts in Islamabad’s Margalla Hills, containment efforts underway

  • The blaze erupted near Saidpur Darra, Jungle Number 15 and Rumli areas
  • Over 70 firefighters are participating in the operation to put out the blaze

ISLAMABAD: A wildfire erupted in the Margalla Hills in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Monday, the Islamabad district administration said, with efforts underway to put out the blaze.

The Margalla range, part of the Himalayan foothills, often experiences bushfires in the summer months. Last year, several incidents of forest fire were reported at the hills as various parts of the country remained in the grip of intense heatwaves.

On Monday, a fire broke out near Saidpur Darra, Jungle Number 15 and Rumli areas on the hills, prompting an immediate response from the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) fire brigade and officials of the district administration.

“More than 70 firefighters are participating in the operation to control the fire,” the district administration said in a statement.

“The fire was brought under control once, but it broke out again.”

No casualties or property damage have been reported in the wake of the fire, according to authorities.

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

“The fire will be brought under control again soon,” the district administration added.


Death toll from IED blast in Pakistan’s southwest rises to four

Updated 47 min 50 sec ago
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Death toll from IED blast in Pakistan’s southwest rises to four

  • Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades
  • The attack comes days after four paramilitary troops were killed in the province

QUETTA: At least four people have been killed and 12 others wounded in a bomb blast in Pakistan’s turbulent southwestern province of Balochistan, a security official said Monday.

An improvised explosive device (IED) was planted in a parked car in Killa Abdullah district of Balochistan, less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Quetta.

“It seems the IED exploded before reaching its intended destination,” a local security official, Ghulab Khan, told AFP.

“All those killed are civilian passersby,” he added.

Riaz Khan Dawar, a senior local government official, confirmed the details to AFP, adding the explosion took place close to a paramilitary compound on Sunday evening.

Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, where militants target state forces, foreign nationals, and non-locals in the mineral-rich southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.

The attack came days after four paramilitary troops were killed in the province.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is the most active group in the region and often carries out deadly attacks against security forces, but the local chapter of Daesh and the Pakistani Taliban have also claimed recent attacks.

Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence in its regions bordering Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its western neighbor of allowing its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan — a claim the Taliban deny.

In Balochistan, separatist violence has intensified, including a March attack by ethnic Baloch militants on a train carrying 450 passengers, which sparked a two-day siege and left dozens dead.

More than 241 people, mostly security officials, have been killed in attacks since the start of the year by armed groups fighting the government in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, according to an AFP tally.


‘Brothers forever’: Pakistani military acknowledges Saudi role in truce with India

Updated 27 min 18 sec ago
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‘Brothers forever’: Pakistani military acknowledges Saudi role in truce with India

  • Pakistan and India this month traded missile, drone and artillery strikes over an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir
  • The conflict alarmed world leaders and friendly nations, with a Saudi minister traveling to New Delhi and Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, has acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s role in helping secure a ceasefire with India, after the nuclear-armed neighbors exchanged heavy cross-border fire this month.

India on May 7 launched a series of strikes across the Line of Control — the de facto border that separates the Indian-controlled and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. It also hit other sites on the Pakistani mainland, targeting what it claimed were militant positions.

Pakistan retaliated with strikes on Indian military targets before the ceasefire took effect on May 10, following efforts by world powers and friendly nations, including Saudi Arabia, to quickly de-escalate the conflict.

The Kingdom’s role in mediation was “very positive and wonderful,” Lt. Gen. Chaudhry told Arab News.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (right) meets Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 9, 2025. (PID/File)

Pakistan and India have fought multiple wars since their independence from British rule in 1947. Two of the wars were over the disputed region of Kashmir, which both claim in full but rule in part.

The recent escalation came days after New Delhi blamed Pakistan for a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir — Islamabad denied any involvement.

As the neighbors exchanged fire, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir visited both New Delhi and Islamabad. The May 10 truce was reached shortly afterward.

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar shake hands in New Delhi on May 8, 2025. (Ministry of External Affairs/File)

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan share close diplomatic and strategic relations, and the Kingdom has provided significant support to Pakistan during its prolonged economic challenges in recent years.

“The bond between the people of Pakistan and the people of Saudi Arabia is very strong, and we in the armed forces have a very close bond with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And this is a relationship that is based on respect,” Lt. Gen. Chaudhry said.

“Saudis are our brothers, brothers forever.”


Six killed, one injured as family feud turns violent in Pakistan’s northwest — official

Updated 19 May 2025
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Six killed, one injured as family feud turns violent in Pakistan’s northwest — official

  • The deceased persons included three men and three women
  • Injured woman shifted to Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital

PESHAWAR: At least six persons were killed and a woman sustained gunshot wounds in a violent altercation between two families in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, rescue officials said on Monday.

The incident took place near the Khatko Bridge area reportedly over domestic issues, according to District Emergency Officer Ghayoor Mushtaq Khan.

The deceased included three men and three women.

“As a result of the gunfire, one woman was critically injured, while six others died on the spot,” Khan said in a statement.

It added the Rescue 1122 service responded to the emergency, provided first aid to the injured woman and transferred her to Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital.

Family feuds are common in Pakistan and that often violent and last for long in parts of the country where tribal customs and laws are followed by residents.

In June last year, 10 members of a family, including a two-year-old, were killed in a late-night attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, police said.


Pakistani police search for suspect in killing of Ahmadi minority doctor

Updated 19 May 2025
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Pakistani police search for suspect in killing of Ahmadi minority doctor

  • Official says the motive behind the killing remains unclear and a probe is ongoing
  • There are about 500,000 Ahmadis in Pakistan, a nation of more than 240 million

LAHORE: Pakistani police stepped up their search Monday for the suspect in the killing of a doctor from the country’s Ahmadi minority, the latest in a string of deadly attacks targeting the community.

The physician was gunned down at a private hospital where he worked in the eastern city of Sargodha on Friday. The gunman fled the scene.

The Ahmadi faith was established in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Pakistan’s Parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974, with their homes and places of worship attacked over the decades by hard-liners who consider them heretics.

There are about 500,000 Ahmadis in Pakistan, a nation of more than 240 million.

No one claimed responsibility for Friday’s killing but supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party have carried out many of the attacks on Ahmadis, accusing them of blasphemy.

Sargodha police official, Sikandar Ali, said the motive behind the killing of Dr. Sheikh Mahmood remains unclear. An investigation is ongoing, he said.

Mahmood’s killing was the third attack on Ahmadis in Pakistan since April, said Amir Mahmood, a spokesman for the Ahmadi community.

He urged the government to protect Ahmadis, whose places of worship and even graveyards are also often desecrated by extremist groups.